Experian Health, MongoDB partner on universal patient ID manager
Experian Health has partnered with MongoDB, developer of non-relational databases, for its Universal Identity Manager platform.
The technology – which aggregates data from disparate databases, in various data formats, to create a single view – is meant to help providers keep better track of patients' identities as they move across the continuum of care, according to Experian Health.
The company, which has more than 3,200 hospitals and 10,000 other healthcare organizations using its billing and revenue cycle management tools, says it explored various potential database partners before choosing MongoDB, which it selected for its flexible data model, scalability and overall cost.
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Experian officials say the UIM platform, able to matching and manage IDs across the healthcare ecosystem works within and across multiple IT systems to improve patient safety and quality and lower cost of care.
Creating the ID manager on a relational database would have required Experian Health to execute up to 10 SQL joins to positively match a patient's identity, officials note. But using MongoDB allowed the company to simplify its schema, reduce the number of queries, improve performance and simplify growth as the volume of data increased.
"The data in the Universal Identity Manager platform fits perfectly with the document model of MongoDB," said Mike Ochs, chief technology officer of Experian Health, in a statement. "Our previous relational database was hitting a wall on the number of concurrent queries it could handle effectively. Collaborating with MongoDB has alleviated that concern."
Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
